A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry
Having almost run out of words, Ishvar sighed. “Dinabai, to thank you for your kindness and beg forgiveness for my rudeness, I fall at your feet.” He started to bend, and the threat worked.
“Don’t you dare,” she broke her silence. “You know how I feel about that. We will speak no more about all this.”
“Okayji. It’s my problem, I agree to work it out in my head.”
“Fine. He is your nephew, and the fatherly duties are yours.”
The agreement was broken by Ishvar the following evening. The correspondence he had initiated was yet to be dealt with, and the ordeal was putting him through bouts of excruciating doubt. Sighs of “Hai Ram” steamed from his lips at intervals. The real cause of yesterday’s explosion was now clear to everyone.
“The opportunity is perfect,” he brooded. “Only, it comes before we are ready for it.”
“Om is a handsome fellow,” said Maneck. “Look at his chikna hairstyle. He does not need a marriage reservation. Top-notch girls will line up for him by the dozen.”
Ishvar whirled around and pointed, his finger an inch from Maneck’s face. “You stop mocking such a serious matter.”
For a moment it seemed he might strike Maneck; then he dropped his hand. “Like a son I look on you – like a brother to Om. And this is how you treat me? Jeering and making fun of what is so important to me?”
Maneck was nonplussed; he thought he saw tears starting in Ishvar’s eyes. But before he could come up with something to reassure him, Om intervened, “You’ve gone crazy for sure, you can’t even take a joke anymore. All you do is drama and naatak every chance you get.”
His uncle nodded meekly. “What to do, I am so worried about this. Bas, I’ll keep my mouth shut from now on and think quietly.”
But he badly wanted their opinions, wanted a proper discussion, a favourable consensus to cloak his obsession. And within minutes he started again. “Who can tell when a golden chance like this will reappear? Four good families to choose from. Some people go through life without finding even one suitable match.”
“It’s too soon for me to get married,” Om repeated wearily.
“Better too soon than too late.”
“What if our tailoring goes phuss because of a strike or something?” said Dina. “These are bad times, you cannot take anything for granted.”
“All the more reason to marry. A new wife’s kismat will change all our lives for the better.”
“Even if that’s true, where is the space for her in this tiny flat?”
“I would not dream of asking for more space. The verandah is enough.”
“For you and Om, and his wife? All three on the verandah?” The idea sounded preposterous. “Are you ridiculing me?”
“No, Dinabai, I am not. Next time I go searching for accommodation, you should come with me, see how families live. Eight, nine, or ten people in a small room. Sleeping one over the other on big shelves, from floor to ceiling, like third-class railway berths. Or in cupboards, or in the bathroom. Surviving like goods in a warehouse.”
“I know all that. You don’t have to lecture me, I have lived my whole life in this city.”
“Compared to such misery, three people on the verandah is a deluxe lodging,” he said fervently. “But I am not insisting on it. If it’s not your wish, we’ll just go back to our village. The important thing is Om’s marriage. Once that is done, my duty is done. The rest does not matter.”
A week after Ashraf Chacha’s letter, Ishvar found the courage to proceed with the viewing of the four brides-to-be. He wrote back, laboriously forming the words, that Om and he would arrive in a month. “Which will give us time to complete the dresses you brought yesterday,” he told Dina. With his response in the mail, the old calm returned to him, slipping like a shirt upon his person.
Dina found it baffling: a sensible man like Ishvar, suddenly turned irrational. Could he be conducting a form of blackmail? Could he be hoping that her need for their skills would force her to take in Om’s wife?
Her suspicion waxed and waned. It was stronger at times when he kept emphasizing how Dina’s fortune would change if the bride resided in this flat. “You will see the difference the minute she crosses your threshold, Dinabai. Daughters-in-law have been known to transform the destiny of entire households.”
“She will be neither my daughter-in-law nor yours,” Dina pointed out.
But he was not to be put off by a trifling technicality. “Daughter-in-law is just a word. Call her anything you like. The hand of good fortune is not fussy about words.”
She shook her head in frustration and amusement. Ishvar and deceit – the two just did not go together. His inability to dissemble was well known. If his mind was in turmoil, his fingers were never far behind in manifesting the confusion; when he was pleased about something, his half-smile radiated uncontrollably, his arms ready to embrace the world. Cunning strategies did not proceed from such an open nature.
She dismissed her suspicion about blackmail. It would have made more sense in dealing with someone like Nusswan. Now he – he was capable of every devious twist and turn. A person could go crazy trying to predict his actions. She wondered how it would be when the time came for the children to get married. Not children anymore – Xerxes and Zarir were grown men. And Nusswan trying to select wives for them, putting to use all the practice he got when he was set on finding her a husband.
She remembered the years when her nephews were small. What a time of fun it had been, but so brief. And how miserable they were when Nusswan and Ruby and she argued, and there was screaming and shouting. Not knowing whose side to take, whether to run to Daddy or to Aunty to plead for peace. In the end, she had missed out on so much. Their school years, report cards, prize distribution days, cricket matches, their first long trousers. Independence came at a high price: a debt with a payment schedule of hurt and regret. But the other option – under Nusswan’s thumb – was inconceivable.
As always, on looking back, Dina was convinced she was better off on her own. She tried to imagine Om a married man, tried to imagine a wife beside him, a woman with a small delicate figure like his. A wedding photo. Om in stiff new starched clothes and an extravagant wedding turban. Wife in a red sari. A modest necklace, nose-ring, earrings, bangles – and the moneylender waiting in the wings, happy to put the noose around their necks. And what would she be like? And what would it be like to finally have another woman living in this flat?
A picture began to form, and Dina let it develop for two days, adding depth and detail, colour and texture. Om’s wife, standing in the front door. Her head demurely lowered. Her eyes sparkling when she looks up, her mouth smiling shyly, lips covered with her fingers. The days pass. Sometimes the young woman sits alone at the window, and remembers forsaken places. Dina sits beside her and encourages her to talk, to tell her things about the life left behind. And Om’s wife begins at last to speak. More pictures, more stories…
On the third day Dina said to Ishvar, “If you seriously think the verandah is big enough for three people, we can try it out.”
He heard her through the Singer’s hammer and hum, and braked the flywheel, slamming his palm upon it.
“Good thing you drive a sewing-machine and not a motorcar,” she said. “Your passengers would be chauffeured straight into the next world.”
Laughing, he leapt from the stool. “Om! Om, listen!” he called to the verandah. “Dinabai says yes! Come here – come and thank her!” Then he realized he himself still hadn’t done that. “Thank you, Dinabai!” He joined his hands. “Once again you are helping us in ways beyond repayment!”
“It’s only a trial. Thank me later, if it works out.”
“It will, I promise! I was right about the cat… the kittens coming back… and I will be right about this, too, believe me,” he said, breathless in his joy. “The main thing is, you are willing to help. That’s like receiving your good wishes and blessings. It’s the most important thing – the most importa
The mood in the flat changed, and Ishvar couldn’t stop beaming at the seams he was running off. “It will be perfect, Dinabai, believe me. For all of us. She will be useful to you also. She can clean the house, go to the bazaar, cook for –”
“Are you getting a wife for Om, or a servant?” she inquired, her tone caustic.
“No no, not servant,” he said reproachfully. “Why does it make her a servant if she does her duties as a wife? How else do people find happiness except in fulfilling their duty?”
“There can be no happiness without fairness,” she said. “Remember that, Om – don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”
“Exactly,” said Maneck, concealing the inexplicable sadness that came over him. “And if you misbehave, Umbrella Bachchan and his pagoda parasol will straighten you out.”
Dina felt that granting consent for the verandah had legitimized a role for herself in Om’s marriage, and given her certain rights. He had come along quite nicely in these past few months, she thought. The scalp itch was gone and his hair was healthy, no longer dripping with smelly coconut oil. For this last, the credit went to Maneck and his distaste of greasy stuff in the hair.
Slowly but surely, Om had reinvented himself in Maneck’s image, from hairstyle to sparse moustache to clothes. Most recently, he had made flared trousers for himself, borrowing Maneck’s to trace the pattern. He even smelled like Maneck, thanks to Cinthol Soap and Lakmé Talcum Powder. And Maneck had learned from Om as well – instead of always wearing shoes and socks in the heat, which made his feet smell by the end of the day, he now wore chappals.
But imitation only underscored the difference between the two: Maneck sturdy and big-boned, Om with his delicate birdlike frame. If anyone was to become a husband, she thought, Maneck seemed more ready, not Om, the skinny boy of eighteen.
Once more, she was acutely aware of the painful thinness flitting and darting about the flat, especially in the kitchen, in the evenings, when it charmed her to watch his flour-coated fingers fly, kneading the dough and rolling out the chapatis. The rolling pin moved like magic under his hands. His skill, and the delight he took in it, had a mesmerizing effect. It made her want to cease her own chores, just stand and stare.
She reflected on the time Om had been living with her. She had observed him devouring hearty meals, quantities that were anything but birdlike. Which removed one possibility – he was not underweight because he ate poorly. And her original suspicion of a year ago wriggled out again.
“It just won’t do,” she said, discussing the matter with Ishvar. “Thanks to you, the boy is going to take on a big responsibility. But what kind of husband and father will he make with a stomachful of worms?”
“How can you be so sure, Dinabai?”
“He complains about headaches, and itches in private places. He eats a lot but continues to be skin and bones. Those are definite signs.”
Next day, she showed Ishvar the dark-brown bottle of vermifuge she had purchased at the chemist’s. “It’s the best wedding gift I can give the boy.”
The pink liquid was to be ingested in a single dose. He examined it, unscrewing the top to sniff: not a pleasant smell. How good it would be if Om were cured before the wedding, he thought. “But what if it’s something else, not worms?”
“That’s okay, the medicine won’t do any harm. It just acts like a purge. He must fast this evening, and take it late at night. Look, it explains on the label here.”
But the directions were quite complex for his rudimentary English, lost when it strayed too far beyond chest, sleeve, collar, waist. He promised to make his nephew swallow the dose before going to bed.
The more difficult part was to persuade Om to miss dinner. “Such injustice,” he complained. “Starving the cook who makes your chapatis.”
“If you eat, the worms eat. They need to be kept waiting hungrily inside your stomach, with their mouths wide open. So when you take the medicine, they swallow it eagerly and die.”
Maneck said he had once seen a film about a doctor who became very tiny, in order to go inside the patient’s body and fight the disease. “I could take a tiny gun and shoot dead all your worms.”
“Sure,” said Om. “Or a tiny umbrella, to stab them. Then I won’t need to drink this foul stuff.”
“One thing you are forgetting,” said Ishvar. “If you are very tiny in the stomach, the worms will be like giant cobras and pythons. Hahnji, mister, hundreds of them swarming, seething, hissing around you.”
“I hadn’t thought of that,” said Maneck. “Forget it. I’m cancelling my voyage.”
Dina lost count after Om’s first seven trips to the toilet next morning. “I am dead,” he moaned. “Nothing left of me.”
Then late in the afternoon he burst out of the wc, shaken but triumphant. “It fell! It looked like a small snake!”
“Was it wriggling or lifeless?”
“Wriggling madly.”
“That means the medicine couldn’t sedate it. What a powerful parasite. How big was it?”
He thought for a moment and held out his hand. “From here to here,” he pointed from fingertips to wrist. “About eight inches.”
“Now you know why you are so thin. That wicked creature and its children were eating up your nourishment. Hundreds of stomachs within your stomach. And none of you believed me when I said worms. Never mind, it won’t be long now before you put on weight. Soon you’ll be as well built as Maneck.”
“Yes,” said Maneck, “we have three weeks to make a strong husband out of you.”
“And the father of half a dozen boys,” added Ishvar.
“Don’t give bad advice,” said Dina. “Two children only. At the most, three. Haven’t you been listening to the family planning people? Remember, Om, treat your wife with respect. No shouting or screaming or beating. And one thing is certain, I will not allow any kerosene stoves on my verandah.”
Ishvar understood her allusion, veiled though it was. He protested that bride burnings and dowry deaths happened among the greedy upper castes, his community did not do such things.
“Really? And what does your community say about male and female children? Any preferences?”
“We cannot determine these things,” he declared. “It’s all in God’s hands.”
Maneck nudged Om and whispered, “It’s not in God’s hands, it’s in your pants.”
Om took a day to recover from the vermifuge. Next evening Maneck made plans to celebrate the return of the appetite with bhel-puri and coconut water at the beach.
“You are spoiling my nephew,” said Ishvar.
“Not really. It’s the first time I’m treating him. Previously his pet worm did the eating.”
Ishvar stared at the man in the doorway, trying to place him, for the voice was familiar but not the face. Then he recoiled, recognizing the greatly transformed hair-collector. His scalp was smooth and shining, and he had shaved off his moustache.
“You! Where did you come from?” He wondered whether to tell him to get lost or threaten to call the police.
Shoulders drooping, head bowed, Rajaram would not meet his gaze. “I took a chance,” he said. “It’s been so many months, I didn’t know if you still worked here.”
“What happened to your long hair?” asked Om, and Ishvar clicked his tongue disapprovingly. He didn’t want his nephew to get familiar again with this murderer.
“It’s okay to ask about my hair,” said Rajaram, raising his head. The expression in his eyes was empty, the fire of relentless enterprise extinguished. “You are my only friends. And I need your help. But I feel so bad… still haven’t returned your last loan.”
Ishvar withheld his disgust. To get involved in police business, with just days left before the wedding trip, would be most inauspicious. If a few rupees could get rid of the killer, he would do it. He stepped backwards to allow Rajaram to enter the verandah. “So what’s wrong this time?”
“Terrible trouble. Nothing but trouble. Ev
Good riddance, thought Ishvar.
“Excuse me,” said Dina. “I don’t know you very well, but as a Parsi, my belief makes me say this: suicide is wrong, human beings are not meant to select their time of death. For then they would also be allowed to pick the moment of birth.”
Rajaram stared at her hair, letting moments elapse before responding. “Choosing the ending has nothing to do with choosing the beginning. The two are independent. Anyway, you misunderstand me. All I meant was, I want to reject the material world, become a sanyasi, spend my life meditating in a cave.”
She regarded this as much an evasion as suicide. “It’s all the same thing.”
“I don’t agree,” said Maneck.
“Please don’t interrupt me, Maneck,” she said, turning to Rajaram again. “And how is my old haircutting kit? Does it still work? It is a Made In England set, mind you.”
He blanched. “Yes, it’s working first class.”
Then he would speak no more of himself in the presence of Maneck and Dina. “Can I buy my two old friends a cup of tea? What’s that restaurant you go to – Aram?”
“Vishram,” said Ishvar, and checked if he had enough money in his pocket for tea. Although the invitation was the hair-collector’s, chances were, he would end up paying.
They walked silently to the corner, and settled around the solitary table. The cook waved an oily hand from his corner. “Story time!” he shouted happily. “And what is today’s topic?”
The tailors laughed, shaking their heads. “The story is, our friend is thirsty for your special tea,” said Ishvar. “He has come very far to meet us.”
Rajaram looked about him awkwardly; he had forgotten how tiny and exposed the Vishram was. But he was grateful for the privacy afforded by the din of the roaring stoves.